Ford is looking to pour ice-cold water all over Toyota’s hybrid hot streak and is making some very good progress with its current lineup. The Fusion Hybrid and C-Max are both rated at 47 mpg EPA combined (however, those numbers are highly suspect in real-world testing). But more importantly, both vehicles look more like traditional vehicles instead of wind tunnel-sculpted tadpoles on wheels.

Ford is stepping up its efforts even with further with the “Energi” plug-in versions of those aforementioned hybrids. Both the C-Max Energi and Fusion Energi can travel 21 miles on battery power alone before falling back on the 2.0-liter Atkinson cycle four-cylinder engine. Using data gathered from its MyFord Mobile App (available for the Fusion Energi, C-Max Energi, and Focus Electric), Ford has been able to determine just how customers are using their new plug-in hybrid vehicles.

Fusion Energi

Ford was able to determine that nearly 60 percent of the trips that drivers make are gas-free (the figure stood at 41 percent earlier in the year). As drivers become more familiar with their vehicles, how far they can travel on battery-only power, and learn where charging stations are located, the "gas-free" percentages start to creep even higher.

“The daily percent driven in electric mode continues to inch upward, suggesting drivers are using the information provided by MyFord Mobile to change how they drive and really get the most out of their vehicles,” says Joe Rork, project manager for MyFord Mobile.

Other data gathered from the MyFord Mobile App shows that the average charge time for a Fusion Energi and C-Max Energi is 185 minutes, and that most drivers search for charging stations between noon and 2 p.m. Not surprisingly, the most actively searched areas for charging stations include “green hotbeds” like San Francisco, Los Angeles, Portland, Seattle, and the northeast corridor.

Ford hopes to use the wealth of data that it gathers to help improve the functionality of both the MyFord Mobile app and the next generation of plug-in hybrid vehicles.

3) What that also means is that okay, the first 5 years, you are making up the difference between the cost of the hybrid and the non-hybrid. But what happens AFTER you've passed the break-even point? What does that mean for you then? (See, notice how people mostly talk about "how long does it take for me to make up for the difference in initial cost?" but very few people then further extend the question to "what does it mean AFTER I've broken even?") ;) Think about that one.

The engineers for the original Prius wasn't sure how long the battery was going to last, so they designed the battery electronics control module to be VERY conservative and there are still cars that are running around that were the original North American Prius, 16 years later.